When Jess and Rory Crashed
by theselection98
Summary: This takes place in S2E19, "Teach Me Tonight", when Jess crashes Rory's car. This is my take of what would have happened before, during, and after the crash.


**This takes place in season 2 episode 19, entitled "Teach Me Tonight". Rory is tutoring Jess, but they decided to take an ice cream break, and Jess drove Rory's car, which Dean made for her. The first part is taken right from the episode, and the rest is what I imagine happened after the scene break. This is my first time writing a story for Gilmore Girls, so bear with me! Thanks for reading!**

"So I just go straight then we'll be back at Luke's."

"Good sense of direction, Jess," Rory quipped.

There was a pause.

"Of course, I could turn right." Another pause. "And then we'd just be driving around in circles for a while."

Jess looked at Rory, and Rory met his stare. She weighed the options in her head.

"Turn right."

They drove in silence for a while. Then, "Gilmore," Jess deadpanned, "I didn't have you pinned as a Clash fan!"

"Huh?"

"Well, back there with that whole 'Guns of Brixton' recognition?"

"Oh, yeah." Rory's mind seemed to be elsewhere.

" Y'know," Jess slowed the car down. "We don't have to be doing this. We could be back studying at the diner."

"No! No, please let's keep going." Rory looked into her lap and mumbled, "This is kind of nice."

"What was that?" Jess was teasing her.

"I _said_, this is kind of nice!"

"Huh."

"What?"

"Nothin"

"Jess—"

"Yes, tutor?"

"Ugh," Rory slapped him playfully on the shoulder.

"Hey!" Jess cautioned with a crooked smile. "I'm driving here!"

"Yeah, says the same person who made me take the wheel because his _cone_ was dripping!"

There were a few moments of silence.

"So Rory," Jess began.

It pained Rory to admit to herself that the way her name came out of Jess' mouth made her stomach get butterflies.

Jess continued, "How'd you get into this tutoring business?"

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call it a business..."

"And why is that?"

"You're the only one I tutor!"

"Hm, is it because my mommy says I'm special?" Jess intoned with sarcasm.

"No!"

"Well then why?"

Rory wasn't sure if she should vocalize the thought that popped into her head. She decided to go against her conscience.

"Oh, what the hell. It's because _I_ think you're special!"

Jess' face remained stoic and unmoving. "And what's that supposed to mean?" he said quietly, but the phrase was absolutely charged with electricity.

"We've just been through this, Jess!" Rory was growing exasperated. "You could _do _so much, _be_ so much, and I just don't want to see it go to waste!"

Jess began to speed the car up.

"Well, what if I don't want to do something? To be something?"

The car went faster.

"Jess, I didn't mean—"

"Hasn't anyone ever thought of that? Huh? Has anyone said, 'Jess, do _you _want to be anything?' 'Cus what if I don't? What if I just want to sit around my whole life?"

"I'm not trying to—" Jess pushed the gas pedal even harder. "Jess, slow down!"

"I mean, my whole life, it's been, 'Jess, go to school! Jess, clean the counter! Jess, move to Stars Hollow with your hermit uncle that you've met twice!' Never once has it been, 'Jess, do you _want_ to go to school? Do you _want_ to move to Stars Hollow?'"

The car was going more than twice the speed limit.

"Jeez, Jess, calm down! What's with the outburst and the moody, misunderstood teenager? You're better than that! And for crying out loud, slow _down!_"

He ignored that last part.

"Aren't you hearing anything I'm saying, Ror?" Jess continued to yell, "Maybe I _am_ a moody teenager! Maybe I'm _not_ better than that! Can't anybody let me just _breathe _sometimes?"

A cat, or maybe it was a possum, ran into the middle of the road.

"Jess, watch OUT!"

Rory leaned over the middle console and tried to steer the car away from the animal. Jess could see that they were going off the road. He let go of the wheel, and threw his body in front of Rory's. She screamed.

There was a crumpled car, a broken windshield, glass everywhere, and complete, utter silence except for two very out of breath, very tangled up teenagers.

Jess suddenly remembered he wasn't alone.

"Rory! Are you ok? Please, God, Ror, tell me you're ok," he panted.

"I'm fine, I swear!" Her voice was tight and frantic, and sounded very weak.

Jess had fallen into her lap when he dove to try to cover her, but he was now squatting in front of her on the floor of the car, searching her eyes. He took her face in both hands.

"God, Ror I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry I—" He wiped the tears that were now making streaks through dirt that had somehow gotten on her face. "I shouldn't have gotten so mad, I shouldn't have been going so fast, and oh, Rory, _God_, Rory! How could I let this happen to you? We have to get out of this car,"

"I—I'm stuck, Jess," A sob escaped her chest and her breathing came more quickly. She tried pulling herself from her seat, but she was stuck under her seatbelt which was trapped under parts of the crumpled car.

"Ror, wait, let me help you, hold on," Jess maneuvered himself out of the car carefully through the broken windshield and jogged around to the passenger side.

"Jess, be careful, I don't want you to—"

"Ror, it's ok, let me help you," but he couldn't get the door open. He knew she was catching on to this and freaking out and he needed to find a way to calm her down. He tried a joke. "Hey Rory, this is some pretty good training for your first oversea correspondent job!" The door was still stuck. He began to panic, but tried to cover it up. "I mean, now I won't even have to yell a foreign language at you! You'll be all set and—"

"JESS! Please, just get me out of the car. I'm sorry, just _please_ get me out of here, I need to get out I just need—"

"Ok, Ror, I'm trying I'm sorry! I'm doing my best to—" his voice cracked and his hands began to shake. He took a deep breath, and Rory did the same.

"I have and idea, Ror."

"Please, just be careful."

Jess squatted down and picked up a shard of glass from the side of the road that had come off of the car. He climbed back on to the hood of the car and reached through the windshield.

"Close your eyes, and hold still."

Rory complied.

Jess quickly and skillfully cut through Rory's seatbelt with the glass. He slid one of his hands under her legs and put his other hand on her back, and deftly lifted her from her seat and through the windshield. He then sat on the hood of the car with Rory cradled in his lap. Jess buried his face in Rory's hair, and she clung to the front of his shirt and cried. He let out a few tears too, but made sure to wipe them away before Rory could see.

"We need to call the police," Rory blurted out, cutting through the silence that had been surrounding them as they sat, Jess rubbing her back lightly.

"What?"

"The police! That's was you do when you get in an accident, we need to call the police," Rory slid out of Jess' lap and started pacing in front of the car. "But I don't have a phone, and we need the police, because I have no clue what to do with a totaled car! How do you handle a totaled car?" Rory threw her hands up in the air emphatically, and then winced, grabbing her left wrist.

Jess hopped off the car and took Rory's hand. "Are you hurt?"

"It's just my wrist, I'll be fi—"

"Ror, it's as swollen as a balloon. Look, go sit on the gazebo steps over there. I have a phone, I'll call the police. Don't worry, go sit."

Rory did as she was told, and after he told their location to the police, Jess went over to wait with Rory.

"How're you holding up, Gilmore?"

"That was Dean's car."

"Huh?"

"Dean, he made it for me."

A siren came into earshot across the town.

"Jeez, Ror, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault."

"No, I told you to keep driving, I got you all riled up when I should have just left you alone."

An ambulance and two police cars, flashing lights and all, pulled around the corner. Rory and Jess stood to greet them.

"Rory, please, don't put the blame on yourself." He ducked down to look her in the eyes. "I am so, so sorry."

A policeman got out of the car, and the teenagers explained themselves to him. It was determined that Rory would go in the ambulance, and Jess should go home.

"Can't I go with her?" Jess pleaded.

"No, son," the policeman responded. "It's best that you get back home, now. She's in good hands."

Rory shuffled over to him and pulled him in for a hug. "Thanks for everything," she whispered.

"No, Rory, I shouldn't—"

"But please," she looked him in the eye. "Don't tell Luke, or my mom, how bad it was. I don't want them getting scared. It's going to be ok. Don't tell them the details, just what they need to know to understand. I don't want to be forbidden from ever seeing you again."

A crooked smile tugged at Jess' lips, and he hinted at a conversation that had had earlier. "Why, would your life be too dull without me?"

Rory smiled softly, gave him one last hug, and said, "I'll call you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Jess repeated.

Jess watched as the ambulance pulled away and he sighed deeply. Not knowing what else to do with himself, he walked over to the bridge, and sat down to figure out how he was going to make this all better.

**So that was kind of crazy, but I hope you liked it! I wrote this in one sitting, so it's definitely not my best work at all, but I hope it got the idea across! Thanks so much for reading, and any/all reviews are welcome! I'd love to hear what you guys think! Thanks again!**


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